The present invention relates to a prefabricated dental floss device.
Since long ago, it is well-known that the risk of the growth of bacteria on tooth surfaces, being difficult or impossible to clean by means of a tooth brush, may be effectively reduced by regular use of dental floss. However, the original classic manner of using dental floss, which is based on holding the dental floss manually by means of the fingers of both hands, is regarded as very troublesome and difficult by many people.
Therefore, in order to facilitate and promote the use of dental floss, various dental floss holders have been proposed. These holders may be divided into two different groups, namely on the one hand, a first group of holders, intended for repeated use and based on the assumption that a user affixes a fresh piece of dental floss to the holder each time he is going to use the holder, and, on the other hand, a second group of holders which are provided with dental floss pieces previously affixed thereto and which together with said dental floss pieces form prefabricated dental floss devices intended for single use.
In both cases, the holders have usually had a york of fork-like shape and been provided with two legs which are rigidly connected to each other and between which the dental floss is mounted in a taut state. However, such a mounting of the dental floss does not permit the dental floss to be wrapped around a tooth and brought to follow the contour of the tooth. Therefore, the possible cleaning of the teeth is strongly restricted. Furthermore, it may very well happen that the dental floss, taut between the two legs, will cut into raised portions of the gumline and hereby cause injuries on the latter.
In order to avoid the above disadvantages and make it possible to achieve a cleaning effect which is just as good as in the case of the classic entirely manual procedure without having to put fingers of both hands into the mouth, also various prefabricated dental floss devices intended for single use have been proposed, comprising a dental floss holder, having the general shape of an elongate rod-like body and consisting of two interconnected but easily separable holder portions, and a piece of dental floss, received in a cavity in the dental floss holder and anchored to the two holder portions with opposite ends thereof and adapted to become uncovered along the major portion of its length when the holder portions are separated from each other. However, despite the obvious advantages offered by dental floss devices of this kind, any such devices have not found any substantial use in practice. No doubt, the reason is that the devices hitherto proposed, for instance those dislosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,625 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,174,314, have not been designed in a manner that could be accepted when considering the required manufacturing process.
The invention has for its purpose to provide an improved dental floss device of said kind which can be produced in a much more simple and inexpensive manner than the devices previously known.
The device, according to the invention proposed for said purpose, is primarily characterized in that said cavity in the dental floss holder is formed by a narrow groove, running in the longitudinal direction of the holder and extending into the holder from one side of the holder, said groove containing the dental floss piece within the same in a position adjacent to the bottom of said groove, the end portions of the dental floss piece being permanently fixed to the holder at places located near mutually opposite ends of the holder.
As a consequence of the design of the dental floss device proposed in accordance with the invention, the manufacture of the dental floss holder as well as the fixation of the dental floss piece to said holder may be effected in an easy and inexpensive manner.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the dental floss holder may suitably be formed by an injection moulded integral member which consists of a rigid plastic material and wherein the two holder portions are connected to each other by a weakened easily breakable connection portion.
The dental floss holder may advantageously consist of a styrene acrylonitrile plastic.
In order to facilitate a convenient and firm holding of each of the two holder portions by a user, said portions may preferably have a non-circular cross-sectional shape. For instance, the two holder portions may advantageously have a cross-sectional shape consisting of a square or a rectangle with rounded corners.
The two end portions of the dental floss piece, which suitably may consist of a multifilament thread consisting of a polyamide plastic, may be fixed to the dental floss holder in many different ways. For instance, they may be fixed to the holder each by means of a plug, inserted into and secured in a bottom hole in the corresponding holder portion. However, they may preferably be fixed to the holder by glue joints or melt joints.